Did much of Watcher's Keep early. Had fun. Got stuff. Made wall of text to tell you about it.
Tresset
Member, Moderator Posts: 8,268
In my berserker->shadowdancer BG2:EE run, which I am currently focusing on, I decided that I wanted my character to have the best scimitar available in SoA to go along with his Grandmaster scimitar proficiency and I wanted it now. The only problem was that I had to do the first 3 floors of Watcher's Keep to get it. So starting at a party level of about 11-13 I moved down to the second floor of the keep (I had already done the first floor to get the extremely useful items there (including Usuno's Blade)). I thought I would share some of my experience with you on how I did it. My team was Keldorn, Anomen, Cernd, Jan, and Neera.
The second floor was fairly easy relatively speaking... The creatures there were nothing really special as the encounters were scaled back from what they usually are when I go there (desert trolls instead of fire giants for instance) and the guardians were not too hard for my warriors to fell. Before long I only had the chromatic demon left to face. To kill him I used a trick I had used on him in a previous playthrough: The awesome insta-tank, nay, insta-bulwark sewer rat! In other words I used the cloak of the sewers to transform Keldorn into a rat (which has 90% resistance to all physical attacks) so he could easily take a beating while I tried to find a way to kill the demon. At first I tried simply whaling on it but that didn't work fast enough... The thing stubbornly refused to shift into any form other than its demon form and the only cold attack I had was one single Cone of Cold cast by Neera and that was barely enough to scratch the surface of its hp. Then I thought to myself: "Could it be vulnerable to magic damage?" so I had Anomen cast holy smite on it. To my surprise it worked! So I had him cast his other smite while Jan threw a magic missile at it (which did nothing for some reason). My next move was a couple of vampiric touches from Neera and Charname which finished the demon off.
The next floor was a much bigger challenge and for a moment I thought I wouldn't make it. For the demon portal maze my plan was simple but challenging: Follow the instructions in Yakman's journal and make a beeline for the last floor while killing everything in my wake. With level drain, stun, hold, fear, and invisibility detection scripts around every corner I relied heavily on my berserker rage, an Improved Haste from Neera, and almost nothing else to get through the floor. Jan, Cernd, and Neera did almost nothing during my stay on this floor, while Keldorn and Anomen backed up Charname with Firetooth Crossbow and Sling of Everard. Charname did pretty much everything with his three whirring swords, Usuno, Celestial Fury, and Blem. The demon camp came next and their leader became hostile immediately because Charname was good aligned. The battle with the demons took a few tries. Even Charname had trouble killing them all fast enough to survive. I finally beat them by distracting them with summons long enough to finish them off. Next came the biggest stumbling block of them all and the part where I thought I was stuck: a bunch of devils in an anti-magic room. The leader of the bunch was a pitfiend that liked to spam a fear spell that worked very well on my party. I had no way to protect my party from the fear because of the dead magic and every time it would make them run right to their deaths. Only Charname was immune because of his rage, but that was not enough to save the rest of my group as he could not take on the devils alone. Finally I came up with an idea. I would use the Ring of Gaxx to haste Charname before entering the room and charge headlong into the center in hopes that I could move the fear spell centered on him away from the rest of my party. I had only a split second before the haste was dispelled by the room but, to my astonishment, it was enough. I immediately told Charname, Keldorn, and Anomen to focus on destroying that rotten pit fiend. Soon enough I had the whole group beat and was free to move on. The rest of the floor was fairly easy after that. I got a reward from the devils at their camp for killing the demons, after which I killed them because I could. With time for preparation it was easy enough. The master wraith was much easier than I remembered... after a few tries I realized that all I had to do was Spell Trigger some Lower Resistances at it and then sequencer some Skull Traps in its face which was all done by Neera (I love wild mages!). I beat it with my entire party stunned by a Symbol: Stun save for Neera and Charname. Finally it was time to meet Aesgareth and claim my Spectral Brand Scimitar. After playing his game and winning after some reloads I killed him to get the deck as well; again, not to hard with time to summon some things.
I then decided to quit watchers keep while I was ahead, at least for now, and have a look at my new deck. With Power Word: Reload I was able to choose the following cards (with the help of this guide):
1. Donjon (Necessary to get the good stuff. I made my save.)
2. Key (I had little interest in a dexterity boost from 19 to 20, so I went with the ring of protection +3 (although I still have a save from before that if anyone thinks I should change my choices.))
3. Throne (1 million exp is always nice.)
End result: I went from about party level 11-13 to party level 12-16. I also got my scimitar and some other things so I am very happy.
The second floor was fairly easy relatively speaking... The creatures there were nothing really special as the encounters were scaled back from what they usually are when I go there (desert trolls instead of fire giants for instance) and the guardians were not too hard for my warriors to fell. Before long I only had the chromatic demon left to face. To kill him I used a trick I had used on him in a previous playthrough: The awesome insta-tank, nay, insta-bulwark sewer rat! In other words I used the cloak of the sewers to transform Keldorn into a rat (which has 90% resistance to all physical attacks) so he could easily take a beating while I tried to find a way to kill the demon. At first I tried simply whaling on it but that didn't work fast enough... The thing stubbornly refused to shift into any form other than its demon form and the only cold attack I had was one single Cone of Cold cast by Neera and that was barely enough to scratch the surface of its hp. Then I thought to myself: "Could it be vulnerable to magic damage?" so I had Anomen cast holy smite on it. To my surprise it worked! So I had him cast his other smite while Jan threw a magic missile at it (which did nothing for some reason). My next move was a couple of vampiric touches from Neera and Charname which finished the demon off.
The next floor was a much bigger challenge and for a moment I thought I wouldn't make it. For the demon portal maze my plan was simple but challenging: Follow the instructions in Yakman's journal and make a beeline for the last floor while killing everything in my wake. With level drain, stun, hold, fear, and invisibility detection scripts around every corner I relied heavily on my berserker rage, an Improved Haste from Neera, and almost nothing else to get through the floor. Jan, Cernd, and Neera did almost nothing during my stay on this floor, while Keldorn and Anomen backed up Charname with Firetooth Crossbow and Sling of Everard. Charname did pretty much everything with his three whirring swords, Usuno, Celestial Fury, and Blem. The demon camp came next and their leader became hostile immediately because Charname was good aligned. The battle with the demons took a few tries. Even Charname had trouble killing them all fast enough to survive. I finally beat them by distracting them with summons long enough to finish them off. Next came the biggest stumbling block of them all and the part where I thought I was stuck: a bunch of devils in an anti-magic room. The leader of the bunch was a pitfiend that liked to spam a fear spell that worked very well on my party. I had no way to protect my party from the fear because of the dead magic and every time it would make them run right to their deaths. Only Charname was immune because of his rage, but that was not enough to save the rest of my group as he could not take on the devils alone. Finally I came up with an idea. I would use the Ring of Gaxx to haste Charname before entering the room and charge headlong into the center in hopes that I could move the fear spell centered on him away from the rest of my party. I had only a split second before the haste was dispelled by the room but, to my astonishment, it was enough. I immediately told Charname, Keldorn, and Anomen to focus on destroying that rotten pit fiend. Soon enough I had the whole group beat and was free to move on. The rest of the floor was fairly easy after that. I got a reward from the devils at their camp for killing the demons, after which I killed them because I could. With time for preparation it was easy enough. The master wraith was much easier than I remembered... after a few tries I realized that all I had to do was Spell Trigger some Lower Resistances at it and then sequencer some Skull Traps in its face which was all done by Neera (I love wild mages!). I beat it with my entire party stunned by a Symbol: Stun save for Neera and Charname. Finally it was time to meet Aesgareth and claim my Spectral Brand Scimitar. After playing his game and winning after some reloads I killed him to get the deck as well; again, not to hard with time to summon some things.
I then decided to quit watchers keep while I was ahead, at least for now, and have a look at my new deck. With Power Word: Reload I was able to choose the following cards (with the help of this guide):
1. Donjon (Necessary to get the good stuff. I made my save.)
2. Key (I had little interest in a dexterity boost from 19 to 20, so I went with the ring of protection +3 (although I still have a save from before that if anyone thinks I should change my choices.))
3. Throne (1 million exp is always nice.)
End result: I went from about party level 11-13 to party level 12-16. I also got my scimitar and some other things so I am very happy.
15
Comments
But yea good stuff
http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/31423/watcher-s-keep-w-scs-low-level-party-challenge
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And, yeah, I killed the demons only because I was around 2M xp, because I was short on money so I went to WK to get good loot and then, good money. The bad thing was that the only enchanted weapon over +2 was the Pixie Prick +3 (a dagger), so yeaaaaah, hurray for backstabs even if enemies are immune to them :P